Warnings: Contains possible triggers for gender dysphoria (mainly top), medical phobia, general anxiety, stress and trauma. Also spoilers for Season 3 BBC Sherlock.
I must further warn you that some parts might be far TMI, but hey, I'm writing about getting my man boobs removed – might as well be frank about all aspects of the experience. I don't intend to scare anyone with the description of things that went wrong – more to reassure people that problems and setbacks do occur but can be overcome.
Also, just a quick declaration that I hope and intend to upset or offend NO ONE with my terminology - any terms I use for my own anatomy are simply how I feel most comfortable referring to my anatomy and are not indicative of how I feel anyone should label or feel about theirs.
The date of my surgery was Thursday 24th July 2014, and I had it with Mr. Rubin at The University Hospital of Durham, England. I had the peri-areolar procedure, being an A cup before surgery. Simply spectacular surgeon. Lovely during consultations, very thorough in making sure I understood everything about the procedure, risks and expectation-wise. I was admitted to hospital the afternoon before my surgery date, on Wed. 23rd, and was nil by mouth from midnight as I'd been scheduled for theatre early in the morning.
My bed was in a lovely, bright and airy ward with four beds. There was no question that I'd be on the men's ward, which was of course entirely correct and wonderful – I'd been slightly worried that they wouldn't be sure where to put me, but I didn't have fretted. In the bed next to me was an effusive and large-hearted gentlemen whom I shall refer to as 'Z', who told me he was from Northern Iraq and had lived in the UK for fifteen years. In the bed opposite me was a very quiet, very sickly-looking man, whom I shall refer to as 'S1' (there's going to be another 'S' later), who told me he'd broken his ankle but hadn't realised it was broken for three weeks, so had walked on it until it had turned to mush. He'd had it reconstructed with pins – it was supported in a tremendous bionic-looking cage. I tried to make conversation with him by mentioning that my Mum had once broken her ankle and walked on it for three days without realising it was broken, but soon realised that he thought this was belittling his mush-rendered ankle and making him defensive, so I shut up and filled in one of my puzzle books.
It seems years ago now – that final night I spent in the hospital bed with boobs still attached – so forgive me if I forget some details. I think the Doctor came to visit me and confirm the procedure I was having, and I vaguely recall having a mushroom stroganoff for tea. Z had an egg salad, which it seemed was all he ever ate, and declared upon it arriving, 'I looooove salad.' He sure did love salad. The stroganoff was fine – nice, even.
It looked set at first to be a quiet night, but then around 10PM S was wheeled away to another ward (something of a relief as I still felt awkward for unintentionally belittling his mushy ankle) and a second S, whom I shall refer to as 'S2', was established in a new bed in his place. S2 was rather angry-looking and not at all talkative. It seemed he'd had surgery on his hand, as this was elevated in a sort of blue foamy sling. He began to snore at 11PM and continued to snore with the pitch and volume of a dying rhinoceros until 6AM, when the nurse came and woke me to say the Dr. would be round soon to take my blood and go through the pre-surgical questions. The catering staff brought round breakfast at seven, in which of course I couldn't partake, and then around 7:30AM the Dr. came as promised, took my blood and asked me lots of questions about pre-existing illnesses and whether I had any loose teeth and whether if it became absolutely necessary they could shove a painkilling suppository up my bum while I was unconscious. I said that under the circumstances I would allow this last.
A little while later, the anaesthesiologist came round – very sweet gentleman, mild-mannered and reassuring – and asked me much the same questions, and assured me that I would be asleep throughout the entire procedure, which I'd assumed anyway but was nice to have confirmed, and then Mr. Rubin came round and prodded at my boobs for a while. Then he took out a red marker and drew on them – all a bit Pillow Book, really, without the eroticism – marking where he'd make the incision under the nipples and some other marks that meant something to him but nothing to me, and asked me if I had any questions, which I didn't, and that was that. At some point and for someone I signed a surgical consent form, but I can't quite remember which one of these people gave it to me. I only know it was definitely a surgical consent form – I checked, I've read Dr. Faustus. At about 8:30, the anaesthetic nurse came and accompanied me to the surgical wing (we walked, which was far more dignified than wheeling, despite the fact that I was in nothing but a surgical gown and black trainers with neon green laces) which was roughly twelve miles away from the ward. Or so it seemed. He directed me to lie on a wheely bed and helped me on with my squeezy white surgery socks, and taped down the ring on my finger, and then another nurse came and they wheeled me to the anaesthetic room. Again, bright and airy and quite unintimidating in atmosphere, and the mild-mannered anaesthesiologist inserted a cannula into the back of my left hand and told me he was going to administer some antibiotics, which would feel cold. It did feel cold. Then he told me he was going to administer the anaesthetic, and I might feel a slight burning sensation as it went up my arm, but not to be alarmed. I did feel a slight burning sensation, and wasn't alarmed. It then intensified into an extreme burning sensation that made me worry he'd set my whole arm on fire, and I became alarmed. I think I went, 'aaargh!' but heard him say, 'It's okay, it'll feel better by the time you wake up,' and that's the last I remember.
When I woke up in recovery, my head was spinning, but otherwise I felt pretty ok. Of course, my chest hurt – it felt something like a baby elephant was standing with its back feet and half of its weight pressing down onto my chest. The first thing I heard before I opened my eyes was a nurse saying to another nurse, 'This is Andrew. He's just coming round from the anaesthetic. We gave him ____mg of blahblahblahmedicine but he had a little convulsion – not sure why, but he's okay now, we'll keep an eye on him.' I was all like, 'Little convulsion? Little convulsion? I don't like the sound of that. Yes. Good. Keep an eye on me,' but I didn't say any of that out loud. As I came round the nurses chatted with me about bingo calling (one of them earlier had asked my profession and I'd told them I was a bingo caller. I wasn't lying – I actually am – but if I wasn't I might have said I was anyway to sound cool). As they wheeled me back to the ward I glanced at the clock and saw that it was around 11:30.
Back on the ward, I fell asleep again, and woke to the sight of my Mum and Dad wielding a Muppets helium balloon. This was lovely and cheered me up immensely. They stayed and chatted with me for a while, and I could see my Mum was intensely relieved that I was ok (she panics a lot about surgery) and left around three o clock (the visiting hours were long – between 2 and 8, which was unusual but great), saying they'd be back at 7PM.
The nurses brought round the meds every four hours – paracetamol, codeine phosphate and if we were in significant pain, a little cup of liquid morphine. Before administering them they'd ask us our pain score, but I was never really sure how to gauge where I was on the scale from 1-10. I knew that 1 was good and 10 was bad, but I wasn't sure how good 1 was or how bad 10 was. Was 10, like, dead from pain? I thought I might be 5, but then I heard Z say he was a 2, which made me think I was being pathetic and cowardly, and reassessed to reckon I was 3. Then I thought, no, dammit, if 10 is dead from pain then nine would be unbearable pain and eight would be just run over by a tractor and seven would be trampled by ten sheep and six would be bitten by a black mamba and five would be just having fallen out of the log flume at Lightwater Valley fun park and hit the fibreglass rocks at the bottom sustaining considerable bruising and four would be a baby elephant standing with its back legs on your chest, which was about where I was now. So I said '4'. After several meds rounds, though, I came to realise that whatever number you gave, they gave you paracetamol and codeine, so I stopped worrying so much.
I had drains coming from either side of my chest, and was wearing a large, tight binder with fluffy dressings underneath, which the nurses referred to as a 'corset'. This made me feel very Victorian. The blood in the drains was astonishingly red – it looked like Kensington Gore. There were parts of the transparent drain tube, too, where it had separated into clear yellow plasma and red blood cells, which was fascinating.
My favourite nurse I should refer to as 'C', as her name began with that, but she reminded me of Jenny Aguter in An American Werewolf in London, so I'll refer to her as 'Jenny'. She was quite strikingly gorgeous and incredibly kind, and I found her presence very reassuring, even if at certain points during my morphine-haze it did make me wonder if I was destined to turn into a werewolf. I held out great hopes that after I was discharged she would come home with me and we'd take a shower together to It's a Marvellous Night for a Moondance and then have incredible amounts of bitey sex and then she'd be heartbroken at being forced to shoot me with a silver bullet. This never happened, but the possibility of it got me through Friday, which was very, very boring. My Mum and Dad came to visit again, at 2 and then at 7, which broke up the day – they really are incredible parents, and I'm so lucky to have them to support me through this.
After a night of sleep broken again by S's snoring, I was allowed home on Saturday morning when they deemed there was little enough blood in my drains to remove them. Jenny Aguter, thank God, was the one who did it (in a little private procedure room), and I was steeling myself for horrible agony, but really it just felt a little strange and slithery and then a great relief. She applied dressings, gave me a tubigrip bandage to compress my chest instead of the huge thick binder, and after a lot more paperwork, I was allowed home. My Mum and Dad drove me home, and I was feeling very fragile, but it was lovely to be out of the hospital.
At home (not my flat, but my Mum and Dad's house - they'd offered to put me up and take care of me while I recovered, the lovely people) I had a shower and watched a couple of episodes of Kath & Kim with my Mum and brother, and then went to bed. I fell into an exciting dream about going down huge slides with some work colleagues from the bingo, and as I hit the ball pool at the bottom of one of them I felt a nasty pain slice through my chest on the left hand side. I woke up then and realised that the pain was not caused by the ball pool impact, but in fact real, and pulled down my tubigrip to find that the left side of my chest had swelled up like a balloon. The horror. It was as though my left boob was angry at being removed and had returned for revenge. 'Ha!' said the boob. 'You thought you had vanquished me. But I have returned. And this time I am twice as powerful. I was 'Boob'. Now I am 'SUPERBOOB'!' I wailed in despair and then used my mobile to call my Mum, who was sleeping downstairs on the sofa so that I could use her bed (did I tell you how awesome my Mum is?). I heard scuffling and panic and then my Mum appeared and was like, 'Oh nooooo!' and we both panicked for a moment about the super boob and then I told her to get the letter with the phone number of the hospital ward, which I rang, and explained the situation. They suggested I return to hospital straight away.
So my poor Dad drove me and a panicking Mum back to the hospital (about 40 minutes drive), and when we got back to the ward, a night nurse took us all into the procedure room and got a look at my chest and was like, 'Oh, ->-bleeped-<-, hematoma city,' in so many words. She called the doctor (one of Mr. Rubin's surgical team) who'd evidently been dragged out of bed and was sleepy but very nice and matter-of-fact and was like, 'Yeah, hematoma, I'll take it out, back to surgery in a couple of hours. See you then, I'm going back to bed' and then to my Mum and Dad, 'He'll be fine', which calmed my Mum down a little.
So about three hours later I was back in the anaesthetic room. This time it was a different anaesthesiologist, and again I had to confirm that it was okay should they need to to put a painkiller up my bum while I was asleep (it was really very nice of them to ask, come to think of it), and this wonderful woman gave me a sedative injection before the horrible burny one, so there was no firey-arm.
When I woke up in recovery the second time, I sank briefly into mild despair – I think it was a reaction to the previous night's small trauma. I searched about for coping mechanisms and decided to pretend that I was BBC Sherlock coming round after I'd just been shot by Mary Morstan. This worked for a while, but the thought of my best friend's wife having attempted my murder began to distress me in itself, as well as the knowledge that soon John would be marrying and leaving me to live in 221B Baker Street by myself, pining for him and our prior association and the ghost of the possibility of a developing homosexual relationship. So I decided to pretend instead that I was FTM!Sherlock, and I'd just had top surgery. This was less of a stretch. In this universe, I was in a fulfilled homosexual relationship with John after Mary had fallen down a manhole outside Fenwicks superstore on a shopping excursion and in the wake of a serious head injury had re-evaluated her feelings for John and realised that Sherlock was better for him in the long-run. John was waiting for me in Ward 15, eating salad with Z. It was nice while it lasted, but soon they wheeled me back to the ward and I had to acknowledge that John wasn't there, because I was in Durham and I wasn't Sherlock.
Praise be, though, Angry Snoring S had been discharged, and in his place was an elderly gentlemen ('J) who had, it transpired, broken his hip and been temporarily accommodated in the plastics ward until there was a bed in orthopaedics. He couldn't hear a thing, which I learned when I tried to introduce myself, and then he got his jumper stuck around his head like a nun's wimple, and Z couldn't stop laughing. I felt bad cos I couldn't get out of bed to help, but a nurse came in the end.
By the late afternoon, the fourth bed was also filled, by a young man called C, who'd had two severed fingers reattached last week and had returned with an infection. He was extremely and resolutely topless throughout his entire stay, and said '<not allowed>!' a lot. In the early evening, he went down to theatre for what was supposed to be a short surgery and didn't return for several hours. Z and I began to grow concerned, and Z voiced the frank theory, 'Maybe he's dead.' As it turned out, he wasn't dead, and he was wheeled back late that night. The moment the nurse determined he was alright and disappeared he staggered from his bed, still half-under the anaesthetic, exclaimed, '<not allowed>!' and crashed into the ward door. Somehow he remained upright, tottered to the toilet and returned alive and in one piece.
S2 gone, I was looking forward to a lovely, snore-free night, but as it happened, J was one hell of a sleep-talker. He started out at around midnight with the loud exclamation, 'All the way to Sunderland?' and then at half-hour intervals would ejaculate, 'Speak up, I can't hear a word you're saying!' Once an hour or so, he would mix it up a bit my mumbling, 'Problems, problems, problems'. C, meanwhile, was now wide-awake, having been asleep in surgery for so long. He couldn't seem to settle, and bounced about the ward topless, occasionally crashing into things and shouting '<not allowed>!' I began to see how he might've come by his injury. I was really feeling sleep-deprived by this point, despite all the hours spent under anaesthetic, so I decided to be FTM!Sherlock again. I closed my eyes and went to my Mind Palace, but it was full of super boobs. This wasn't good, and I tried to fight my way out, but I just found myself descending a spiral staircase to a padded cell in which I was confronted by an enormous super boob in a straitjacket that shouted at me (I don't know how, because it didn't have a mouth, just a nipple), 'It's raining, it's snowing, your left boob is growing!' Somehow I got out of there, only to find myself back in the hospital ward with J still sleep talking, but at least that was better by comparison.
The following morning, during the medication round, after I'd said I was a 2 on the pain scale, which I reckoned because my right side didn't hurt at all but my left felt like there was a really heavy hedgehog lying spines-down upon it, I thought it was time to finally admit to the nurse that I hadn't had a poo since my first surgery five days ago. It pained me to do so, as it was the Jenny Aguter nurse and I knew it would probably ruin my chances of showering with her, but I really, really needed a poo. I didn't say 'I need a poo,' of course – I used the more tactful euphemism, 'I haven't moved my bowels', which is fairly stupid, really, because it sounds like I've left my lower intestine on someone's desk and they're inconvenienced by its presence. Jenny, bless her, said she'd ask if I could have an enema (I should mention that they'd already tried laxatives of various strength, all to no avail) – I didn't relish the thought, but I trusted Jenny enough at this point to trust her with my bumhole, so consented. Then Jenny's shift finished and the morning staff came on. In the end I was administered an enema by a pleasant enough, very professionally-minded sister, who asked if a student nurse could watch as she'd never witnessed one before. I was like, 'Yes, by all means, everyone get a good look at my arsehole'. After she'd squeezed the big syringe of water into my bum, I sucked it in incredibly tightly and shuffled as quickly as I can to the nearby toilet, which had been unoccupied for the entire time I'd been on the ward thus far. It was engaged. 'Where's the nearest toilet?!' I shouted to the nursing staff at the desk, and they directed me back to the occupied toilet, looking at me as though I'd gone mad. 'No,' I shrieked, 'That one's occupied! Where's the next nearest?!' Which it turned out was about a hundred yards down the corridor. I penguin-walked there at incredible speed, slammed and locked the door and barely managed to get sat down before my arsehole exploded.
Halfway through the exploding process, there was a knock on the door. It was C, and apparently he wanted a shower. 'Are you in the shower?' he asked, and because I didn't want to say, 'No, I'm having a giant crap', I replied, 'Yes, I'll be out in a minute!'
Back on the ward I basked in immense relief, and C went for his shower. When he returned, he asked me, 'How did you shower?' My heart began to beat rapidly in my chest – 'oh no', I thought, 'he's observed that there was no dampness on the floor beneath the shower in the bathroom, and deduced that I was not in fact having a shower but having an enormous crap,' so I murmured, 'Errrrr....' Then C said, 'It's just because I have this brilliant plastic thing I use to cover my arm while I shower and wondered if you wanted the address of the website to order one for your chest!' Which made me realise I'd been watching too much Sherlock and ordinary people don't go around deducing craps from lack of shower moisture.
And this is where the tale sort of peters out into generic recovery stuff – my drain was removed the next morning and I was allowed home, and I'm slowly getting better. About a week after the second surgery I'm back in my flat and taking care of myself again. I've almost stopped having nightmares about super boobs and worrying that every twinge is the onset of another hematoma. The right side of my chest is still swollen and the left side looks a bit dented at the moment after the hematoma excavation, but I'm confident it will mostly even out over the next several weeks, and I'm just thrilled with the results, in general (after all, no one's chest is perfectly symmetrical). My nipples in particular I'm very excited about. Mr. Rubin seems to have shaved them off so they're almost flat, folded them over and sewn them up incredibly neatly – they look brilliantly masculine. I had small areola anyway, so he hasn't resized those. My only scars, it seems, will be around the bottom half of my areolas, and these are covered with steri strips at the moment, which are due to be removed on Monday. After the hematoma scare I've been advised to wear the thicker, more compressive binder for the next 4 to 6 weeks, which is uncomfortable but I know it will be worth it.
So, there's been pain, there's been joy, there's been salad and superboobs and giant craps and drains and dressings and Muppets helium balloons and panic and comfort, and on balance, I can safely say that I'm very, very happy. My nipples haven't fallen off (TOUCH WOOD) and I seem more-or-less undamaged by the 'small convulsion''''''''''';@;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;#####qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqHAMSTER. Here I go, onward into a bright and flat-chested future. Wish me luck.
Holy crap. This was the smaller surgery. What's it going to be like when I get my cock?
